Please note: If you have a promotional code you'll be prompted to enter it prior to confirming your order.

Customer Sign In

Returning Customer

If you have an account, please sign in.

New Customers

If you subscribe to any of our print newsletters and have never activated your online account, please activate your account below for online access. By activating your account, you will create a login and password. You only need to activate your account once.

In Case You Missed It:

Medical memo: Soy and sperm

Soy has come a long way. Once considered an obscure and
inscrutable staple of the far-off Asian diet, it became an icon
of American counterculture in the 1960s and '70s, then a prized
health food in the decades that followed. Soy has been touted as
lowering cholesterol, reducing the risk of heart disease, and
protecting the prostate. But studies of these possible benefits
have had mixed results at best, and a report from Harvard raises
the possibility that dietary soy may lower sperm counts.

The study

The soy study was part of a long-term investigation of
environmental factors and fertility. The subjects were 99 male
partners of sub-fertile couples. Each man had a medical
evaluation and complete semen analysis, and each provided a
detailed three-month dietary history that evaluated 15 soy-based
foods, ranging from tofu and tempeh to soy milk, veggie burgers,
and "energy bars" containing soy protein.

The study found that the men who consumed the most soy had the
lowest sperm counts. And it didn't take much soy to do the trick
— as little as one portion every other day was linked to a
reduction in sperm count. All in all, the men who ate the most
soy had counts that averaged 41 million fewer sperm per cubic
milliliter than men who ate the least. The impact was greatest in
overweight men, and the results remained valid after age,
smoking, alcohol, caffeine, body mass index, and the time between
specimen collection and the preceding ejaculation were taken into
account.